1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a recording apparatus that performs recording on a recording target medium.
In this patent application, it is assumed that recording apparatuses are of various kinds, including a serial printer that performs recording while a recording head is moving in a predetermined direction, and a copying machine, a facsimile, etc. that are equipped with such printer functions.
2. Related Art
An example of the recording apparatuses is an ink jet printer (hereinafter, simply referred to as “printer”) that executes recording by discharging ink from a recording head to a recording target medium. This printer performs recording on a recording target medium with inks of a plurality of colors by supplying different color inks to the recording head.
However, as for the printers as described above, there is great need not only for the recording on a recording target medium with a plurality of color inks in such fields as photography printing but also for the recording on a recording target medium in a single color, for example, through the use of only a black ink, in such fields as production of documents. There exists a recording apparatus that performs recording with only a single color (black) ink by utilizing a configuration of the recording apparatus designed to be capable of recording with a plurality of color inks, as described in International Publication No. WO2014/024472 A1.
A printer described in International Publication No. WO2014/024472 A1 includes, as a measure for supplying inks to a recording head, large-capacity ink tanks that hold ink outside an apparatus main body. The inks are supplied from the ink tanks to the recording head via ink tubes. More concretely, a carriage that has the recording head is provided with a plurality of fitting portions to which adapters to which the ink tubes extending from the ink tanks are connected are able to be fitted. In the foregoing printer, only one adapter is attached to a plurality of attachment portions. Then, only the single color ink (e.g., a black ink) supplied from one of the ink tanks is used to perform recording on a recording target medium.
However, if a printer that has a plurality of fitting portions to which an adapter as mentioned above or ink cartridges that contain inks can be fitted is used with an adapter or an ink cartridge attached to only one or more, but not all, of the fitting portions, the carriage may not be able to keep its balance, leading to a risk of reducing the quality of recording.